The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Wunderkind

Re: Wunderkind

Richard Block — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:16:47 -0000

This boy looks like he was diapered in chain mail. I am hoping that he gets corrupted by some insatiable 14 year old who gets him high, screws his brains out and cleanses his wretched, anal soul. Youth is wasted on the young, and so is middle age.

Re: Wunderkind

Sal — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:18:10 -0000

Deleted.

Re: Wunderkind

Harold — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:52:53 -0000

Three words:

ORGAN GRINDER MONKEY

That's what I call children whose parents only give them positive reinforcement or attention when they perform for other adults.

They tend to grow up to become awkward in the spotlight and even just socially. Al Gore and John Kerry always struck me as people who went through this as kids. I see the youngest Palin daughter as this being treated like this too. And plenty of children of non-famous parents. They are used by their narcissistic parents as props and it's a shame.

Al and John seem to have come out of it ok despite their awkwardness so maybe there's hope for the little organ grinder monkey children out there.

Re: Wunderkind

David L — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:39:33 -0000

Wait, really? I think you're knee-jerking here, Ta-Nehisi. Jump on CPAC for allowing such a neophyte into their midst at their big annual gala, sure, but how do you know that his backers aren't doing all those things you mention, aren't nurturing him the right way?

What do you know about him? What do you know of his world view, of his "arrogance"? He seemed to me a confident, polished son of a bitch with a good head on his shoulders. In interviews he seems well-adjusted, rather than socially inept, and the stance of his parents seems a reasonable combination of wariness, head-scratching and support.

CPAC is in disarray, but that doesn't mean we have to throw the kid in with that lot. Jonathan might well be in over his head, and opening his mouth more than his ears at an age at which this is particularly risky, but without more information it's impossible to know whether his handlers are mishandling him. He's not 7 or 11, he's 14. If he's got good people around him -- a big if, I'll admit -- I say let him go, let him be Doogie if that's what he wants to be, and let him fail, too, if that's what he needs. Nothing would be more instructive, for him or his fellow conservatives.

Re: Wunderkind

DFH no. 6 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:07:42 -0000

Man, what a smug, annoying little snit. And that's just in the first 10 seconds. The rest (unsurprisingly) continued in that same tiresome line. A wedgie, at least, is long overdue.

I mean yes, today's conservative "principles" are so simple that a 14-year old can master them, obviously, but seeing that actually displayed is gag-inducing.

Wunderkind, you say? No, I don't think so. A real wunderkind is not so thoroughly embarrassing at displaying whatever it is they're so brilliant at as young Master Krohn here (playing a virtuoso violin, blowing away everyone else at the Science Fair and getting into Caltech early, etc.).

I believe just about every junior and senior high school of any size has at least a few kids just like this. They're the ones doing the oh-so-clever "Morning Crew"-style PA announcements, who are trotted out at pep rallies in the gym, who cringeingly over-act in the school play, and so on. I know my inner-city Cleveland public high school of a generation (or two) ago had them (though I've long forgotten who they were) and my daughter's and son's high school had a veritable surfeit of them, making their graduation ceremonies even more tedious than the norm (though that's probably just a feature of living in Snotsdale, AZ).

And Republicans trotting him out in a setting like CPAC to share the stage, as it were, with Limbaugh and Coulter and all the lesser lights of the thoroughly disgraced and just plain crazy horror show that is modern movement conservatism? Shameless exploitation of the most simple-minded kind (they are conservatives, of course).

To believe otherwise is to pretend that Republican operatives at all levels are something different from what they've shown themselves to be over and over again lo these may years.

Re: Wunderkind

glory — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:15:16 -0000

Great post. I couldn't help thinking while reading it that your son is in excellent hands.

Re: Wunderkind

Simon — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:19:51 -0000

I don't think that TNC is arguing educated=liberal and ignorant=conservative. Only that if you challenge his certitude rather than enabling it, he might end up shifting his position. And the same would hold true if he were a liberal being forced to either up his game or drop it.

Re: Wunderkind

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:05:08 -0000

"Of course if you did all that, you'd risk turning him into liberal."

Great post up until that sentence.

Re: Wunderkind

John D. Moore — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:08:59 -0000

Excellent post. Specifically, this right here's damned quotable.

"I had people around me who valued reading, listening and life experience over talking, writing and publishing."

Re: Wunderkind

klg19 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:54:33 -0000

@Andrew:

Jedediah Purdy! That's IT! Thanks--this was driving me crazy.

Not as young, of course, as Master Krohn, when he first made his mark, but I do recall his marketing (not by him, I hasten to clarify, but on his behalf) was very much "Young men his age are usually frivolous and liberal, but he is conservative and thoughtful."

Thanks!

Oh, and @Fighting Words: glad to see we've reached resolution!

Re: Wunderkind

RichS — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:28:55 -0000

It is similar in my mind, to arming children with weapons as some groups do in Africa or Asia. You can give them a gun, point them in a direction, get them to do heinous things and they will only much later begin to understand what they have done - or hopefully in this case said. It is the lack of reflection and ease of control that these groups seek in creating child soldiers. I think it is no different in this case as well.

Re: Wunderkind

southdem — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:07:50 -0000

I teach gifted students in AP and Honors history classes. When I saw this kid the first thing that popped into my head was "Asperger's!" Asperger's Syndrome kids are intelligent, have high verbal skills, and often focus on one subject relentlessly. They'll spend hours telling you all about it if you let them.

Granted Jonathan seems to have better social skills than many Asperger's kids, but his interactions seem to have been limited: Christian theater groups, other home schooled kids, etc. The NYT piece says his parents started homeschooling him in the 6th grade. I wonder if his elementary teachers were reporting some issues that could have led to an Asperger's diagnosis, and the parents didn't want to hear it?

He seems exceptionally sheltered, even by homeschooling standards. He'll probably have a breakdown whenever he emerges from his parents' cocoon.

Re: Wunderkind

Thomas R — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:58:29 -0000

"Do we have any indication that the parents have not exposed him to a wide range of ideas?" K

TR: Good question. I do have to say though that, in my experience, homeschooling is often about wanting to shelter the child from something. Sometimes it's a legitimate, or at least understandable, fear of violence in the local schools. (Or drugs) Other times it is about politics or religion. That can go either way. I read somewhere about a famous surfer-type who homeschooled his kids so they'd get his surfing/New-Agey mostly Left-wing worldview.

Granted there are exceptions. I saw something about parents of Tourette's kids, at one time anyway, homeschooling because regular schools wouldn't accomodate the disorder. I was not homeschooled as such, but much of my elementary schooling was at home because I had a good deal of bone fractures in my youth some severe enough I couldn't really go to class. In certain cases gifted children are homeschooled because they are deemed a disruption to class. (Sounds weird, but some teachers dislike a kid who is "too smar"t or finishes his/her work too fast and they make their displeasure known)

I'm not precisely against homeschooling, but I'm not precisely for it either.

Re: Wunderkind

Aaron — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:35:19 -0000

I very much liked your post today and couldn't agree more. I was utterly annoyed watching this kid and had to turn him off after about 45 seconds into the clip.

But to return to my central point, you were doing so well until you undermined your own argument in the final paragraph. I'll be generous and assume you didn't really mean that Liberals are just Conservatives with a good education. But you should be more careful than to say something like that (or even imply it). Perhaps it is the euphoria of the end of the Bush era, when the Republicans are at the nadir of their fortunes, and of Obama's ascendancy and the Democrats moment. That's all fair enough but please, let us be careful not to make childish statements.

Re: Wunderkind

John — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:53 -0000

My 14-year old son was fond of extreme rightwing opinions. I don't know where he got them, maybe from school. I am teaching him to actually learn something before speaking and not make a fool of himself. I think I'm making progress.

Re: Wunderkind

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:50:16 -0000

"So long as the corollary is that if a liberal parent did this they'd risk turning the kid into a conservative, or libertarian, the statement is acceptable. (I certainly know parents who have their kid, younger than 14, spouting off about the Republicans and the conservative)"

It most certainly is, and I'd same the same if the situation was flipped.

Re: Wunderkind

Matt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:48:26 -0000

It was great post

He still needs a wedgie!

Re: Wunderkind

Nathan — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:44:29 -0000

TNC,

Have to agree with you completely. Further, I would point out, your political views are less than useless until you've lived a little, paid taxes, been in a real relationship or two, seen the world and made a lot of observations that they don't tell you on tv or even in books. When you repeat what some jackass told you as your own opinion, you're not contemplating the world as it is. Reality has a tendency to come along and smack you across the face - and half the time you deserve it. This kid may or may not end up a good writer/philosopher or tv hack, but regardless, he doesn't know a damn thing about the world that he's figured out for himself. If I were a "conservative" (whatever that term means these days) I'd be embarrassed for the publicity this kid's gotten - but not half as much by how my 'leaders' had carried the standard for the last decade plus.

Re: Wunderkind

Kuros — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:21:46 -0000

@ Padge

It is not appropriate for parents to act paternalist in terms of ideology once children pass the age of reason; I'd argue that neither is it possible, effective, or desirable. But the point here is that this kid has chosen this passion itself, it wasn't foisted upon him. Frankly, I have to read TNC's criticism of the parents as partisan-motivated. Apologies to TNC if he thinks that's ungenerous. But I think its ungenerous to the parents of this teen to imply that he might seek a wider range of ideas.

@ Deborah

Do we have any indication that the parents have not exposed him to a wide range of ideas? Again, he's 14, old enough to have come to his opinions on his own. One assumption that I do think is warranted: this kid wasn't forced to read the material, he obviously had the initiative to do so on his own.

Re: Wunderkind

Andrew — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:32:43 -0000

@Karen,

I think you're thinking of Jedediah Purdy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedediah_Purdy

Re: Wunderkind

Thomas R — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:00:56 -0000

"Of course if you did all that, you'd risk turning him into a liberal." TNC

TR: So long as the corollary is that if a liberal parent did this they'd risk turning the kid into a conservative, or libertarian, the statement is acceptable. (I certainly know parents who have their kid, younger than 14, spouting off about the Republicans and the conservative)

I don't know how I feel here. I do know I dislike kids doing politics. However this is not because I think they'll automatically be bad at it or because it implies it's childish. Although it's rare there are fourteen-year-olds who are well-read people with fairly good, if mostly theoretical, views on politics. William Cullen Bryant wrote political satire when he was thirteen and John Stuart Mill was credible on political matters at about the same age.

I think it's more the emotional stuff, which in fairness you also indicate, that makes me against it. Let's say a fourteen-year-old conservative kid has ideas just as well-formed as any scholar at the Claremont Institute or Heritage Foundation. Well how will they react if someone bashes them the way most here would bash a conservative or Republican? Same goes for liberals. Mill's hypereducation left him emotionally exhausted for a time. Politics just seems too weighty, and stressful, to place on kids that young. (Not saying this kid is a prodigy, just that if he is/were...) I had serious political discussions at fourteen, but they'd sometimes end with me bawling when someone would say we should kill all the Arabs or whatever. (In fairness this was effective and an opinion like that maybe justifies an extreme reaction. Still it was unpleasant for all concerned and I can't imagine what it'd have been like if it was done in public)

Re: Wunderkind

Fighting Words — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:29:14 -0000

@Karen,

Got it. I just misunderstood your previous post.

The only other ones that I know are Ben Ferguson or Kyle Williams. Of course, they don't have those Biblical names that you point out. But it is funny because all of these conservative pundits for the tween set seem to have the exact same background.

Re: Wunderkind

klg19 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:53:44 -0000

@FightingWords

No, definitely NOT Ben Shapiro. Because he is clearly not the brightest candle in the menorah. Now, this was some guy with one of those Jedediah/Zachariah/Obadiah-type names, who wrote a tract that was tearing up the conservative booklists about 5 or 6 years ago.

And while you are absolutely welcome to disagree with me (!), I think you may have misunderstood my point. You write "Although not from a rural area, Cohn is actually from the sprawlburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. The kid actually is a Christian, and is homeschooled." I wasn't saying that the kid wasn't a Christian or that he was particularly urban; just that his shtick was articulate political commentary, not half-hysterical exaltations of Jesus and chastity, the way so many right-wing youth come across. YMMV, of course; that was just my take on the kid.

Re: Wunderkind

Joshua Lyle — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:40:55 -0000

AliHajiSheik,

I'd agree with that; in my evaluation, most wise decisions to homeschool children are oriented towards putting them into a group of peers, which they may not get in conventional American public education.

Re: Wunderkind

Shayla_B — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:39:59 -0000

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